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OF FOREST-TREES. 103 



common : Such havock was the effect of the late prodigious hurricane. CHAP. III. 

 But to proceed. To facilitate the removal of such monstrous trees for ^^-'•^v**^ 

 the adornment of some particular place, or the rarity of the plant, there 

 is this farther expedient : A little before the hardest frosts surprise you, 

 make a square trench about your tree, at such distance from the stem 

 as you judge sufficient for the root ; dig this of competent depths 

 so as almost quite to undermine it, by placing blocks and quarters of wood 

 to sustain the earth ; this done, cast in as much water as may fill the 

 trench, or at least sufficiently wet it, unless the ground were very moist 

 before ; thus let it stand till some very hard frost do bind it firmly to the 

 roots, and then convey it to the pit prepared for its new station, which 

 you may preserve from freezing by laying store of warm litter in it, and 

 so close the mould the better to the straggling fibres, placing what you 

 take out about your new guest to preserve it in temper ; but in case the 

 mould about it be so ponderous as not to be removed by an ordinary 

 force, you may then raise it with a crane or pulley, hanging between 

 a triangle made of three strong and tall limbs united at the top, where 

 a pulley is fastened, as the cables are to be under the quarters which bear 

 the earth about the roots ; for by this means you may weigh up, and 

 place the whole weighty clod upon a trundle, sledge, or other carriage, 

 to be conveyed and replanted where you please, being let down perpen- 

 dicularly into the place by the help of the aforesaid engine : And by this 

 address you may transplant trees of a wonderful stature without the least 

 disorder, and many times without topping, or diminution of the head, 

 which is of great importance where this is practised to supply a defect, 

 or remove a curiosity. 



11. Some advise that, in planting of Oaks, &c. four or five be suffered 

 to stand very near to one another, and then to leave the most prosperous 

 •when they find the rest to disturb its growth ; but I conceive it were 

 better to plant them at such distances as they may least incommode one 

 another : For timber-trees, I would have none nearer than forty feet 

 where they stand closest, especially of the spreading kind. 



12. Lastly, Trees of ordinary stature transplanted, (being first well 

 watered,) must be sufficiently staked and bushed about with thorns, 

 to protect them from the concussion of the winds, and from the casual 

 rubbing and poisonous brutting of cattle and sheep, the oiliness of whose 



